


the prayer of going nowhere

by buttheyrebrothers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Punishment, Recovery, Recovery Porn, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:30:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6077694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttheyrebrothers/pseuds/buttheyrebrothers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky feels guilty for all those things he's done when he was the Winter Soldier. He asks Steve to punish him for them.<br/>Steve doesn't agree with him but wants to give Bucky what he needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the prayer of going nowhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BaronSamedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaronSamedi/gifts).



> Thank you to the wonderful [Dollylux](dollylux.tumblr.com) for her awesome beta work. You're the best! <33
> 
> This was written for one of my best friends and constant inspiration, [Myri](baronsamediswife). I love you like Dean loves pie.

It’s yet another nightmare. He’s used to them by now.

Some are bad. Like the ones with bullets flying and people crumpling. They don’t have time to scream but in his dreams, they always do.

Others are worse. He’s falling in them. Always falling. A man is watching him, screaming for him but he can never reach him. It’s impossible to find any sleep after those so he just lays there, eyes unseeing and ears straining to hear the too deep and even breaths. Still unfamiliar, even after three months, but reassuring.

Tonight’s dream is one of the worst ones.

The worst ones go a lot like the bad ones. It’s him attacking, hurting. Killing. Only, the victim is always the same. The man on the bridge. Captain America. Steve Rogers.

Stevie.

They were on the helicarrier again. If he closes his eyes he can still see the dark crimson on Steve’s pale skin. The sickish violet of forming bruises. The broken lines of once sharp features. He sees himself like Steve has seen him. His blue eyes opened wide like a lacerated wound, his anger bleeding out of them and onto Steve through his fists. He sees how that stubborn idiot just smiles at him. Like he’s happy it’s Bucky who’s beating him to a pulp. “I’m your friend,” he says and makes it sound like something else. Something tender and so much worse. He can’t help but roar like a wounded animal at the sound of it. “You.are.my.mission.” Even then he knew there weren't enough words for what the blonde man is to him, so he chose the only one he understood.

“Then finish it. ‘Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

The worst ones almost end like the worse ones do. Someone’s falling.

He wishes it was him.

It would be a relief to startle awake, to realize all at once that it was just a dream. That he is safe. Steve’s safe.

His body is faster than his mind though. It wakes up and leaves him behind to find his way back slowly. Painfully. His breaths are short and heaving like he’s ran a marathon and sweat beads trickle down his face in rivulets, making him shiver in the cool room. His heart is thumping wildly and he wants nothing more than to open his eyes and see an unmarred face next to him.

But like everything good in his life, he has to fight for it. Has to fight his way back to Steve, metaphorically and figuratively.

It’s the warm hand on his cheek that pushes him over the edge.

Bucky comes to it sitting astride Steve’s lap. His hands are wrapped around a delicate neck. So easy to snap. Like a bird’s bone.

He recoils. Scrambles away until he falls off the bed. It’s still too close so he keeps going until his back hits the wall. His knees go up as his head goes down.

He cowers on the floor with bile rising in his throat, its taste bitter like guilt. Sheets rustle, followed by the sound of tentative footsteps coming closer. Steve kneels before him a moment later and Bucky can see him with his eyes still closed. One hand outstretched, hovering midair. The corners of his generous mouth pulled down and that small crease between his brows. It’s his ‘I’m-worried-about-you-but-want-to-give-you-your-space’ look. Steve is always trying to be understanding, to give him what he needs. What he wants.

He doesn’t want understanding.

“I. I want. Need.” Deep shuddering breath. His eyes still shut tight. He wills himself to speak through clenched teeth. “I need to hurt. Pain. For.” Shakes his head, searches for words that make no sense to him. He never had to ask for it before.

“For what, Buck?” There’s a tremor in Steve’s voice but his hand is steady when it comes to rest on Bucky’s too tight skin. The contact burns but he doesn’t pull away.

“You. The blood. So much. I. Hurt you.” Being the asset had been so simple. He had killed and then there was pain before he was put to sleep again. Like penance. He doesn’t want to go back, doesn’t want to be put under and wake up years later with everyone he knows dead. But he needs –

“Punishment.” His voice is full of wonder, like he found the very thing he was looking for all along. A word for what he needs. Now Steve surely can –

“Buck, no. No.” He sounds pained like he is the one being punished and that’s wrongwrongwrong. “It’s not your fault. _They_ need to be punished. Not you.” Steve edges closer to him. His legs bracket Bucky on the floor and his hands rest on hunched shoulders.

Something inside of him cracks open. It hurts.

Bucky shoves the comforting warmth away. “My hands! It was my hands. My body. Me! Christ, I almost killed you Steve! You stupid jackass. Stop being such a fucking martyr and punch me already. Never had a problem with your fists back in the days.”

Steve ignores the taunt. He’s no longer the impulsive kid with the anger management issues. Or maybe he is, just not with him. Bucky scowls at the thought.

“Buck,” he tries again. His deep, rumbling voice warm, soothing. Placating. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes burn. “You fucking asshole.” He’s on his knees before Steve can react and shoves the man. Hard. Steve falls on his back easily. Doesn’t fight back. Just lays there and looks up at him. Waits.

The soldier hauls off but it’s Bucky who sinks down instead and buries his face in the crook of Steve’s neck. “Please. Stevie. _Please_.” Strong arms wind around his back, pull him down against the hard body underneath him. He feels Steve’s skin glide against his as the captain nods.

The tension leaks out of his body like toxin.

“Thank y-“ Lips cut him off before he can finish the sentence. It’s bruising, all teeth and pain and blood. His body shudders, tremors wrecking him in their intensity. He chases Steve’s lips as the man pulls back and the bite on his bottom lip stings deliciously.

“I give you what you want, Buck. But on my terms. I decide how I punish you. Agreed?” There is the kind of steel in his voice that makes Captain America not only a hero, but a leader. Someone who takes charge. Strong. Dominant. But good, so so good.

“Yes, sir.” He almost misses the dilation of Steve’s pupils. Almost.

“Good. On the bed, kneeling. Hands on the headboard. Don’t turn around.”

Bucky hurries over to the bed, eager to obey. Orders, he knows. They’re simple. He likes that. It means less ways for him to screw up.

Steve leaves their bedroom but comes back after seventy-three seconds. His steps are measured, not slow but not fast either. The muscles in Bucky’s body strain with the effort to not turn around.

He twitches when hands land on his where they grab the headboard. Fingers stroke over white knuckles. Back and forth and back again. It’s nice. He doesn’t want, deserve, nice. The soldier growls.

The hands leave him and his head is yanked back by his hair so that he’s forced to meet Steve’s eyes. “I thought we agreed who’s in command here. I can’t give you what you need if you break the headboard. So. Ease off.” His voice takes on a gentler tone. “I got you. But you gotta trust me. Can you do that, Buck?”

The soldier is not sure he can trust _anyone_ , not even himself, but Bucky nods.

“Good. So good.” A soft press of lips against his, sweet but with intent.

He only notices the cuffs when it’s too late.

They’re soft, padded with worn leather. “You could break free easily but I don’t want you to. They’re not to hold you but to give you something to hold onto.”

He goes slack at those words. Steve always knew what he needed.

The man steps away from him again but not before he runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair. Then he’s gone and the room is quiet. It should be unnerving not to know what will happen next and how he will be punished, but it’s familiar to the soldier like most things aren’t in this new life. 

He still tenses when his sweats are eased off his hips and discarded next to the bed.

There’s the sound of someone (Steve, it’s just Steve) rummaging through drawers and then silence again. “You can look at me for a second, Buck.” _It’s a trap, don’t look, be good, obey –_

“It’s okay, Buck. I swear. Look at me.” Steve is asking, begging, so he does.

The sight makes his mouth go dry.

Steve stands in front of the bed with his torso bare and a fucking belt in his hands. His grip on it is as tight as Bucky’s was on the headboard, the veins and muscles in his forearms standing out with the effort. The room is dark except the city lights filtering in through the windows. Everything inside the room is hazy but Steve. The only thing he sees in multi-color.

“Steve.”

“I don’t – None of what happened is your fault Buck, but if you need me to do this to you, I will.”

The first strike still seems to come out of nowhere. The skin on the back of his thighs stings, a hot and bright pain. His back arches at the sensation. It’s familiar and brand new at the same time. Pain, he knows. But never before did it come with such confusing amounts of pleasure. The only good sensations the soldier remembers are the absence of bad ones. Not being cold, not being hungry. Not hurting.

This. This is something else.

“One. For all the people the soldier had to kill he didn’t even know.”

He wants to protest, wants to demand a hit for every single one of them. He deserves these 296 hits. But he knows he can’t do that to Steve.

Steve, who trails the end of the belt over the swelling flesh on Bucky’s thighs in a sensual apology already.

The next two blows aims across his buttocks, one from the right and one from the left. The sound of leather hitting flesh is loud and distinct in the otherwise silent room. Bucky’s gasp is not but Steve hears it anyway. “Buck,” he starts but catches himself at the furious shaking of Bucky’s head. It’s a silent plea to go on, to see it through. The soldier can take the blows. It’s not sure about Steve’s helpless affection.

“Two and three. One for Howard and one for Maria.”

He almost forgot about them but of course Steve wouldn’t. Captain America was already a dead legend when Howard married Maria but he knows that Steve and Howard had been sort of friends. There was a reluctant respect for each other between them. Bucky remembers the slight sting of jealousy back then. Howard was a good looking man and Steve. Steve had always been something else.

The hits keep coming after that, each with a number and a reason. Never on the same stripe of flesh twice, Steve makes sure of that. There is one for Nick Fury, who he didn’t kill by a hair's breadth. Another blow for Natasha, although he thinks he deserves two for her. After all, it’s on him that she has now two bikini-phobic scars.  There’s also one for Sam. Bucky knows he didn’t hurt the man too bad physically but that breaking his wings was somehow worse. He’s glad Steve thought of that.

“Six.” Steve’s voice breaks for the first time. He shifts his stance and takes a shuddering breath before he continues. “For me.”

The last one, the most important one, hits his crack vertically. He can’t help the sound breaking out of its teeth-filled prison. It’s the only unmarred space and the most sensitive one. It’s so _good_.

He is rocking slightly back and forth on the bed, minuscule movements he’s unaware of until now. As he comes back to himself at an almost glacial pace he notices several things. His chest is heaving. The muscles in his legs and arms tremble.

He is hard and leaking between his legs.

The sound of the belt as it hits the floor still doesn’t register with him. Only the sensation of cool hands against the hot swelling of his abused flesh brings him back fully from where his mind has taken him. Steve strokes over the dents on his legs and ass with reverence, like his touch would heal them. There are days when Bucky believes if someone could heal with his touch alone, it would be Steve. He’s doing it to Bucky for months.

The hands stay on his skin, a soft petting now. Curious. Exploring. It’s different to the pain of the belt but just as maddening. The soldier tries to get away but Bucky presses into the touch like he’s starved for it. His body is rocking again, stronger this time. More undecided.

The hands are on his upper back now and fingertips trace the tense muscles there. One by one, like the first tentative strokes of a brush on canvas. If he were a cat he would purr but he is not. The choked sobs that want to break free would mangle the sound anyway.

“Bucky, all those things, they were done by your body. But not by _you_.”

Steve climbs on the bed behind him and he’s just glad that those kind eyes can’t see his face anymore.

“Not by the boy who stood up for a skinny kid who picked more fights than a drunken sailor.”

His touch has wandered down to his flanks, his nails raking over the sensitive skin there. He doesn’t need to look to see the red stripes on his pale flesh. He shudders violently even before those broad hands reach the swell of his ass. A kiss is placed on his tailbone. The lips linger; tender and soft as thumbs caress the burning welts. Another festering sore cracks wide open inside of him.

“Not by the guy who always asked the wallflowers to dance with him just so they wouldn’t feel left out.”

The lips follow the traces left behind by those loving fingers and a tear slips free from the soldier’s eyes. Like floodgates had opened more tears follow. Some are Bucky’s, some belong to the soldier. He cries for what he lost, what he’s done and what was done to him. Mourns the things he never got to do and all those moments missed. Grieves for the past and the present and the future that never was.

Steve’s hands stay on him the whole time.

“They were not done by the man who took care of me when I had nothing left in my life. The man who held me when my skinny body was rattled by coughs and rubbed my back to help me breathe, just to get up after another sleepless night to work by the docks for our rent. Bucky, this man. He’s nothing but good. A good man who had bad things done to him.”

He’s glad for the cuffs as his grip on the board starts slipping. It’s impossible to hold onto it with the way sobs are shaking his body. Again, Steve is there to ground him.

He drapes his body over Bucky’s from behind, covers every inch of skin he can reach. Like a super-hero blanket, just for him. The gesture seems to be innocent despite the suggestive position. He’s still half-hard but the uncontrollable bawling took mostly care of it. The trembling subsides as the warmth of Steve’s body seeps into his back.

“Shhhh, Buck. It’s okay. I’m here. I got you.” A deep rumble breathed into his ear. The air tickles the sensitive skin behind them and his cock starts to show new interest in the proceedings. He’s tired of crying. Confused by his body’s reactions.

He’s a hot mess.

“You’re my mess, Buck.” Another soft whisper. Moist lips pressed to his cheek. He presses his ass back against Steve, helplessly turned on by the whiplash of sensations. It’s been a long time he felt so alive.

The lips wander. To the downturned corner of his mouth and the dip in his chin. Teeth bite at the stubbly line of his jaw and grace the elegant slope of his neck. There, they make themselves at home. Suckling, biting, licking. Their hips have picked up their own rhythm, rocking against each other like tidal waves. He almost forgets what it is they were doing here when Steve’s hand finds the hot flesh of his cock where it is straining for attention.

The skin of his neck feels sore where Steve worried it between his teeth. He can sense Steve’s eyes on the patch of abused skin and feels his smile when he places one last tender kiss on it. “My mess. My Bucky. Mine.”

He shudders, captivated by the feelings warring in his chest. There are so many sounds inside his throat but he’s afraid of which ones would come out, if he lets them. So he stays silent.

Long fingers wrap themselves around his erection. They pump his shaft in tune with the thrusts of Steve’s own clothed cock against his bare ass. There’s pleasure and arousal flooding his insides and it’s almost painful in its intensity. He feels like he’s hanging onto the last bits of sanity by the skin of his teeth.

“Bucky. I. _Goddammit_.” Steve’s thrusts become erratic, his hips stuttering after an especially forceful shove.

“Buck, I forgive you, okay. Whatever. _Shit_. Whatever you think you need punishment for. I forgive you.”

Bucky comes with a scream.

Everything he held in for so long breaks out, spurt after spurt of come wetting the sheets and incomprehensible words spilling right after them.

Steve is right there with him, until the end of the line. Just like he always is.

The tension has left his body with the force of his climax and he sags down, unable to support them both. He doesn’t even care for the wet spot he landed in. There is warmth at his back and that’s more than he had for decades.

They both stay there for a small eternity. Just them, in their little cocoon of shared breath and familiar smells. Bucky intertwines their legs and Steve’s mouth and hands are back on his body like some weird sort of magnetism.

He’s not magically okay. He probably never will be.

It doesn’t matter as much as before.

“Thank you, Stevie.” There’s a real smile on his face and it feels like a new beginning.

The sun goes up over New York as Steve and Bucky fall asleep.


End file.
